GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Instructors at Grand Rapids Community College used to wait weeks to get results from data requests that showed how their students were performing in subsequent classes.

Now, that information, which can help professors evaluate and analyze the success of the classes they teach, is at their fingertips.

The college is training faculty and staff how to tap into GRCC’s electronic data warehouse, where information on everything from course success rates to statistics on student demographics are stored.

John Cowles, the college’s dean of student success and retention, said faculty could use the data in a variety of ways, including monitoring how students who complete introductory courses perform in more advanced classes. Instructors could tweak their courses based on what they find.

“It’s all part of the completion agenda,” he said. “We want to increase student persistence and completion.”

Before, faculty were only able to access the information by sending requests to GRCC’s institutional research department. Filling those requests often took weeks because only a few employees were able to retrieve the statistics.

“We want to see patterns,” said Vikki Cooper, a reading instructor who participated in the data training and is eager to see if her classes give students the reading skills they need to be successful in college-level courses.

“If a student started taking Reading 097, Reading 098 – we want to see how well they do in their subsequent courses,” Cooper said. “If they’re doing well in their 100-level content courses, that’s important because that’s what our reading classes are supposed to do.”

About 75 faculty and staff have taken the training, Cowles said. The college has about 825 full-time instructors and adjuncts.

Cowles said giving instructors access to data is one of several ways the college is attempting to increase the number of students who graduate or transfer to a four-year school.

Other ways GRCC is attempting to boost student performance include the creation of the College Success Center, which offers advising and student success coaches, and the addition of Fast Track, a program that enables students to bypass some developmental courses. The efforts are financed through a five-year federal grant totaling about $2 million.

“We want them to stick around and finish what they started,” Cowles said.

Shanna Goff, who teaches developmental math, participated in two data training sessions in mid-November. She hasn’t yet had a lot of time to examine the data system, but she’s pleased she can now access information more quickly.

Like Cooper, she’s also interested in how her students do in future classes, not just in math, but in disciplines such as science, too.

“It’s been difficult to have access to that data,” she said. “I’m pretty excited that now we’ll be able to go in and get this in a more timely fashion.”

Brian McVicar covers education for MLive and The Grand Rapids Press. Email him at bmcvicar@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter